In my childhood, I lived in a small town probably no one in the metro cities heard of. The population was small, environment was pure, its roads were lined with tall neem trees on both sides, and it also had a lake over which there was a small bridge. My grandfather was a professor and H.O.D. at the best college in the town and hence everyone knew our family. Unlike today, it was quite common those days for people to ask for both father's name and grandfather's name when they came across a new kid.
When I reached high school, I was full of energy and aspirations. My mother was extremely idealist and a kind of a saint in the eyes of us kids. I remember having started reading newspapers and forming opinion on things. At the high school level, due to the extreme hard work needed in studies, I did not waste time in hanging out with friends after school. It left me with some challenges in finding anyone to share thoughts and ideas with. And I found a solution in the problem itself. In the newspaper, there used to be a "letter to the editor" column and I started sending letters and sharing my opinion on popular news and events. After a while, my letters were getting regularly published in the newspaper. I was proud seeing my name in the printed form, but more than proud I was happier, and eager to think whether I had the best opinion on the matter or not. I have always been trying to be a perfectionist. During those days, people sending letters to newspapers even sent their postal address along with their name and even I did it at times, and hence I started getting hand-written letters from many places. It was very inspiring for a small-town boy like me.
I got letters from many people and all letters were sent appreciating what I had said in my "letter to the editor". Now I look back at that time and I am happy that I did not get any "hate mail"; I don't know if anyone had time those days to send anyone else a hate mail. Perhaps this whole culture of sharing-hatred came after internet and online portals came up. Anyways, so among the letters I got, there were two regular senders as far as I remember now. One was a Jain monk and a few people from his organization, perhaps they had got attracted by the idealistic views expressed in me. And the other person was a boy from another district. Now I don't remember what he wrote in his letters, but I had replied back to him, and it created a "pen-friendship" between us. I came to know that there was something called "pen friend" only when he told me about it.
After exchanging a few letters and our views on some topics nothing of which I remember now, he sent one letter where he mentioned about his struggles with life because he said he was physically disabled (lame in one leg) and I remember even now that he wrote, "as you are aware that I am lame". I was shocked reading that. I felt cheated and betrayed. Not because he was physically disabled, but because he hid it from me so far and when he revealed it, he wrote "as you are aware". It sounded fishy. I was very sure he was revealing it for the first time to me and he should have been honest to say that he wanted to inform me about his physical status, instead of putting it like "as you are aware". I did not reply to his letter.
After I did not reply to his last letter mentioning about his disability, he wrote me another letter, saying something like, "friend, you did not reply to my last letter. I think you were shocked at finding out..". Why would I be shocked at finding anything about him? I was shocked because of a different reason and perhaps he won't understand the nuances of it. I don't remember now if I replied to his next letter or not, but most probably I did not reply. But I do remember that the feeling of betrayal and being cheated was the last feeling I had for him. I remember I came under slight stress those days because of this episode.
And then, after a week or two, while I was going somewhere, I saw a guy wearing nice clothes, limping in one leg, in my own colony where my home was situated at. Was he the same guy? I got scared a bit. I kept going and since he did not have my photograph, he won't have recognized me even if he saw me. I felt a bit guilty too, but I just ignored the incident. When I returned home, I was relieved that no stranger visited our house. That was the last incident concerning the guy.
Afterwards, I kept sending letters to the editor. The only other "pen friend" I made was in the form of a Jain monk, and the "friendship" ended tragically too when he crossed a line (by offering me money for doing charity). Now I realize that I had the common sense and an intuition where to draw the line at that age and time when I had not seen the world. I think what I did was the right thing to do and I should not have exposed myself to risks like that.
So, my "pen friends" experiment turned out to be scary episodes and I learnt something from those. No matter how hard we try, we all end up taking up risks from unknown sources. Sometimes our common sense (or intuition) saves us from further risks, and sometimes only our luck (or God).
- Rahul
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